


But we could be safer, just for one day

by ShariDeschain



Category: Batman (Comics), Batman - All Media Types, Batman and Robin (Comics), Nightwing (Comics), Red Hood and the Outlaws (Comics), Red Robin (Comics)
Genre: Angst, Family Drama, Gen, Siblings Fighting and Bonding
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-07
Updated: 2018-02-16
Packaged: 2019-03-15 04:21:20
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,716
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13605414
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ShariDeschain/pseuds/ShariDeschain
Summary: “We’re going to die here.”“No. No, we aren’t. You’re just a stupid brat, you don’t know anything. Dick and I, we got out of situation a lot worse than this one.”





	1. Chapter 1

The situation could not be worse. If Tim had beforehand asked Black Mask to describe the ideal scenario in which he would've liked to have them killed, Roman Sionis would've answered: _this is pretty fine as it is, thank you._

That’s how bad it is.

He crouches down next to Damian, back against the wall, batarangs ready in one of his hands. It’s useless, but reassuring. He looks down at the kid. If Robin is still conscious it's because he's too damn stubborn to faint in front of him, but the amount of blood flowing from his chest and onto the floor is dangerously close to the warning level, and Tim’s learned that stubbornness can keep you alive only up to a point (of course Damian’s case is a little bit extreme, since the kid has the same genetics of Bruce Wayne, the man that Tim’s ready to swear is still alive _only_ out of stubborness).

He pokes at Damian’s shoulder to attract his attention.

“That doesn’t look good”, he whispers, eyes transfixed on the line of bullet wounds running all along Damian’s left side and up to his chest. The kevlar stopped most of them from breaking the skin, but _most of them_ is not _all of them_ , so _doesn’t look good_ is the understatement of the century, but Tim’s not really up for small talk right now. Not with five machine guns pointing at them, no exit, no backup, and this kid, this kid he hates, this kid the people around him persistently call his younger brother, cut off almost in half by a burst of gunfire.

Damian’s head lolls back in a drunken fashion, and one eye flutters open to peek out from behind a shattered white lens.

“How smart of you”, Damian hisses through clamped teeth, mouth full of blood. “You must be a detective.”

Tim hates this kid for a lot of reasons, his nasty, arrogant attitude being the first item of the ever-growing list, but right now he wants to laugh, because he hates this kid, and this kid is dying in front of him, and yet this goddamn kid still manages to give him shit. It’s amazing.

“I’m going to get you out of here”, he promises on the spur of the moment.

Damian snorts. Tim only sees a flash of pearl-white teeth stained with red.

“We’re going to die here.”

“No. No, we aren’t. You’re just a stupid brat, you don’t know anything. Dick and I, we got out of situation a lot worse than this one.”

The main difference between those situations and the current one being that Tim always trusted Dick to be able to save the both of them no matter what danger they were facing, while apparently Damian, once realized that he could only count on Tim to get out of here alive, is already thinking about his own epitaph.

“I’ll get you out of here”, Tim insists and the last word's not even completely out of his mouth yet that a burst of gunfire explodes above them. A long line of bullet holes appears on the wall just above their heads, dust and concrete fragments fall all over them and Damian snorts again.

“Sure you will.”

“Shut it, Damian. Let me think”, Tim whispers. He notices that one of his arms is wrapped tightly around the kid’s shoulder and it’s weird because he doesn’t remember putting it there. He doesn’t touch Damian if he can help it. He hates this kid. That’s what he keeps telling himself, over and over again: he hates this kid and he’ll get him out of here just to throw it into his face.

Gunfire again. This time accompanied by the sounds of footsteps getting closer.

“...Drake.”

“Shut up! I’m thinking!”, Tim's practically yelling by now. His nose is pinching like crazy and his eyes are wet. Must be the dust. He moves to put his other arm under Damian’s knees and hoist him up into his lap so he can help applying pressure on the wounds. The kid’s hand are too damn small for Damian to even do that on his own. Another reason to hate this kid a little more. Another reason to save him.

“I’m thinking”, he repeats, his face now half-hidden into the boy's hair. Damian doesn’t answer this time, not even with a snort. Tim holds him closer by instinct.

Four batarangs, nine men, five machine guns, one wounded kid, he catalogues in his mind. Pretty desperate, but Dick would be able to pull it off, right? So there's no reason for Tim not to do the same. It's his turn now.

“I’ll get you out of here”, he promises Damian for the third time, because every time he repeats it he feels a little bit more determined than before. “You’ll see.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [Tumblr prompt](https://unavenged-robin.tumblr.com/post/170623098833/that-doesnt-look-good-with-tim-and-damian)


	2. Then we could be heroes, just for one day

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Written for the COWT#8 @ maridichallenge, prompt "Supereroi" (Superheroes)

“Where did you find them?”, Dick asks, shaky fingers tapping a furious beat on the counter. 

It’s getting to Jason’s nerves, but Dick looks ready to snap and Jason himself couldn't ask for anything better than punching someone in the face to release some of the still lingering adrenaline, but a fight wouldn’t help the situation, and Alfred would probably shoot them both with his ancient but always very well oiled boom-stick.

“One of the abandoned warehouse near the river”, he answers then, half-voice. “Any idea on what they were doing there?”

Dick’s eyes never leave the door behind which Tim and Damian disappeared, wheeled in by both a stoic Alfred and a a very worried Leslie. He licks his lips before answering.

“Recon. With strict orders of not engaging.”

Jason can’t help but snort at that.

“And who’s the genius who decided to send those twotogether, on a unsupervised mission, with orders they would hardly obey even with the ol’ big Bat looming over them?”

It was supposed to be a joke, but it comes out angry. After all, it was Jason who found the two youngest bats cowered in a corner of a warehouse, bleeding, almost passed out, and one second away from catching a bullet in their heads. He has a right to be angry.

Dick doesn't seem to agree with him.

Sometimes Jason forgets how frighteningly fast Nightwing can move when he’s pissed off. He barely catches sight of his brother’s black and blue fist before Dick’s fingers grabs the collar of his jacket and he’s shoved back against the wall with a loud thud.

“Shut up”, Dick growls in his face, low and dangerous.

“It was your idea, wasn’t it?”, Jason insists, a hoarse, furious laugh between gritted teeth. 

He could punch Dick, headbutt him in the face, but that wouldn’t hurt him enough. Physical violence means nothing to them. The deepest cuts only come from someone else confirming out loud the uncomfortable truths, the secret thoughts, the hidden doubts that keep all of them awake at night.

And he wants to hurt Dick _bad_.

“They were waiting for you”, Jason goes on, fear fueling the cruelty of his words because it’s been two hours since he brought the kids home - Damian, sickly pale and unresponsive, cradled in his arms like a goddamn baby, and Tim slumped over his shoulder, blubbering nonsense about hating some kid all the way to the cave, driving him crazy. _Two hours_ and Alfred’s still in the emergency room with them. “They were gonna die there, had I not got the crazy idea to check the docks even if they weren’t on my patrol route tonight, and you know what? They weren’t expecting to see me. They weren’t expecting Bruce either. They were waiting _for you_.”

And in the warehouse, when Tim had lifted his gaze to meet Jason’s, he had clutched Damian closer and said to him _we will not die_. As if he was challenging Jason to contradict him. As if Jason was some kind of angel of death. But he’s not gonna tell Dick this.

“You sent them there, you were nowhere in sight to help them, and still they were waiting for you”, he says instead. “Isn’t it crazy?”

Shoot and killed. 

He couldn’t have got such a pained expression out of Dick if he had beaten him with a crowbar all night. His brother’s face crumbles down, and Jason watches all the bitter words caught in Dick’s throat die on his lips. The grip around Jason’s jacket and over his chest loosen enough for him to breathe right again.

So he takes a big gulp of air and looks up at the cave’s ceiling, eyes burning red and the feeling of his brothers’ blood drying on his skin and clothes.

“It kind of hurts me too, you know?”, Jason confides him, slumping back a little against the wall. Dick follows him movement, ends up leaning against him, his forehead against Jason’s temple. “How no matter what happens, you’ll always be the hero in their eyes, the one that will descend from the sky to save them with some crazy acrobatic stunt, while I’ll always be the cautionary tale, the fuck-up you can never count on, the one you’ll end up like if you make a mistake.”

The cave’s still silent, no one emerged from the med bay during their little outburst, which is both a good and a bad thing at the same time. In that silence, an arm comes up to wrap itself around Jason’s neck in an unrequested and unwanted one-sided hug. But Jason’s not the one in need of comforting here.

“That’s not what you are to them”, Dick sighs, voice cracked but still somehow holding that _don’t-you-dare-contradict-me-you-know-that-I-know-better-than-you-do_ edge that sometimes, when he’s very tired, Dick uses with all of them. “Or to me. Or to Bruce. If anything, you’re the hope that things can get better. That sometimes you get good things even if you don’t deserve them.”

“You know nothing, Dick-Snow”, Jason retorts. He still hugs him back, although very briefly, and Dick laughs tiredly against his neck.

“I’m sorry”, Jason adds after a moment, a wave exhaustion washing over him. “I was just-”

“I know. Me too. But they’re gonna be fine”, Dick interrupts him, straightening himself up. He squeezes Jason’s shoulder, smiles a little bit. For the first time Jason notices the wrinkles around his eyes. “You’ll see.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> @ all the people who shouted at me for the open finale: uh, sorry *runs away*
> 
> [Tumblr prompt](https://unavenged-robin.tumblr.com/post/170946502468/jason-and-dick-talking-about-how-damian-and-tim)


End file.
